Becoming a mom at the age of 19 to Sophia, was the easiest "obstacle" she endured. After being thrown into society expected to raise the child practically by herself, that was the harder part. With no financial help available from family, Lauren turned to government assistance, only again to be faced with no help from the employees. During this journey, Lauren experienced applying for and receiving governmental assistance of foods stamps, WIC, Medicaid, childcare assistance and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Without these programs, Lauren would not have gotten very far as a young mother. Unfortunately, because these programs are more geared toward completely homeless, drug addiction, or illegal alien people, there is quite the battle that any normal, working, single mother must fight in order to receive these benefits from New York State.

         Lauren had managed to start her career in early childcare education when her older daughter was three, creating a clever situation where she would be able to bring her daughter to daycare with her, while she worked in a separate classroom. After having her second child and coming off of a four-month bedrest, she continued her education, received her early education certificate and became a pre-school teacher. At home, Lauren self-taught herself how to use CorelDRAW and began creating t-shirt designs. She purchased a vinyl plotter to cut heat transfer vinyl and a heat press to create T-shirts for local businesses and friends. This had created a huge love of graphic designing for Lauren, but it wasn’t enough.

      Lauren had her second child, Madelyn, at 23 and although she had already built a life from the ground up with the girl’s father, she decided to start her life all over again alone with the two girls when they were 4 and 9 months old. This forced Lauren to once again “start from the bottom”, walking away with nothing but their clothes and a few of their toys. Lauren, the two girls and her best friend Brittany, all slept in the same queen-sized bed for two weeks until Lauren found her own apartment and purchased a vehicle. She had no furniture, nothing for the apartment and no financial help from anyone around her.

      She strived for more and wasn’t satisfied knowing the potential she had. While looking for extra income, a friend presented a weekend gig at a local racetrack, collecting money for wristbands at the front gate. Little did Lauren know; this would be the beginning of a new era for her. After working weekend after weekend, watching the talented motorcycle racers having the absolute time of their life, Lauren began to long to become a part of this community. She borrowed the racetrack owner’s TTR-125 and it was all uphill from there. She fell in love with the sport, the community and discovered a huge passion for all things racing. After being promoted from gate keeper, to timing system operator at the racetrack, her quick and knowledgeable computer skills landed her a position with a traveling racing series. This series brought on a newfound love of marketing, designing, sponsorship and overall business operations.

      While her career in childhood education was diminishing, Lauren was brought upon a new opportunity to work for a small local sign company who needed help with graphic designing and administration. Skeptical of what would be expected from her, Lauren took the position and enrolled the girls in a new daycare. Again, this part of Lauren’s life was so significant in her journey to where she is now. Lauren worked for the sign company for seven years, learning everything there was to know about graphic design, signage materials, operations, project management, coordination, computer systems, machines, cranes, and so on. A new passion and a new way of life. At the same time, she also took on finishing her associate degree in business management at the local community college AND received her New York Real Estate license. With the new background of sign knowledge, this eventually catapulted her into the lap of corporate companies looking for experienced project managers. She received an email one morning with an offer from a national sign company located in Tampa, FL asking her to start work immediately in-person and work hybrid-remotely afterwards. Talk about a dream…

    As we all know, rainbows don’t last forever. Within 6 months of picking up her whole life and moving 18 hours away from everything and everyone she knew, Lauren was stranded in Tampa, laid off following a corporate company closure. Panic set in. How? She did all of this for them and now they are no longer even a them? Wow.

      Fighting for her and her children’s future, Lauren set out to capture a new position within the same industry, but after several COVID layoffs and company closures, the sign industry was looking very dull. She started a new venture of receiving her life insurance license and began helping families with financial planning. Lauren also started her education for her Florida real estate license, since Florida does not accept a New York State license. In the meantime, Lauren worked for Shipt, shopping for and delivering local grocery orders. Lauren put so many hours into working for Shipt, she brought in over $12,000 during a six-month period. Eventually, she was able to come across another local sign company who was intrigued to find her with the skill set she had and immediately hired her to work in-person. This caused strain on her and the girls as she had just worked remotely for six months and didn’t have before or after school care for the girls. With her townhome lease coming to an end, Lauren decided maybe moving back to New York was better for her and the girls at this time so she could get back on her feet and get out of the hole she had gracefully dug herself in to.

      As soon as Lauren moved back to New York from Florida, she was presented with another amazing opportunity to work fully remote as a Project Manager for another sign company. She took the role of working with large corporate companies, including Capital One and traveled around the U.S. to her job sites, inspecting and quality controlling the items her company was producing. Lauren went on to be presented with more opportunities from other sign companies who were in dire need of her skill set. She found herself overly enjoying helping multiple companies by sharing her knowledge and experience with each and every different business she came across. Learning about these companies individually, seeing what they were doing right or wrong, seeing what other employees did or didn't do, gave Lauren insight on how to properly manage, control and operate each individual customer, project, and business. This passion is what created the “Let Lauren Help You” motto.

     From building a business, to purchasing a home, to investing in your future, or getting the right coverage for your family, Let Lauren Help You through it all. Let someone who has experienced the struggle, who has a passion for actually helping people, who just wants to make the world a little bit easier for every individual, help you. Lauren has done it alone, done it broke, done it thinking “how am I going to do this”, all so she could turn around and make it easier for everyone behind her.

     If you’re inspired by Lauren’s story, please let her know. If you’ve been driving the struggle bus, let us know.

     We are here now to help. You’re not alone.